2024 Week 11: Vikings 23, Titans 13

Before watching the game I saw that the Titans were flagged 10 more times than the Vikings. I immediately knew this was another game in which the Titans were the unlucky team, and it wound up being that way. I know, I know. If a team is this unlucky, aren’t they just bad? I would agree with that, and I do. This team is flawed, especially when it comes to the O-line. That being said, there were a lot of iffy calls, but two calls stood out to me that directly impacted the score of this game. 

Will Levis threw a beautiful pass to Calvin Ridley that would have been a 51-yard score that was called back due to an illegal formation (the one they call for tackles being lined up too far back) that was very borderline, 9/10 times it doesn’t get called. That drive wound up being a field goal rather than a touchdown, that’s 4 points. 

The Vikings were stopped on a fourth down that the refs called defensive offsides, which the announcers said on the broadcast was a bad call. A few plays later Tennessee stopped them on 4th and 1 but an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty gave Minnesota a fresh set of downs and another Vikings TD, this one the XP was missed so 3 more points. 

I’m going over all of this to say that this wasn’t a 10-point win for Minnesota in reality, they barely won and would have been on upset watch if the refs called a good game.

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QB Report:
- Will Levis (17/31 for 295 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT; 7 rushes for 18 yards) played another nice game here, he’s starting to get back to what I had seen last season. Ever since his shoulder healed up he’s been one of the better QBs to watch. The big knock on Levis right now is that he holds onto the ball too long, that’s the current narrative… which is why he gets sacked so much. But if you watch the game you’d know that he’s pressured immediately, he has the 6th fast time to throw, and this game was the first time I’ve noticed announcers talk about the right side of the line specifically. I believe it was the play after the called-back TD that they commented ‘I don’t know what’s more unbelievable, the throws by Levis or how fast the defense gets by the right tackle’. If that TD wasn’t called back people would be thinking about thinking about questioning what they’ve been told about Will Levis for the past two years. That’s a 2-TD game with 300+ yards otherwise.

- The Titans defense did a nice job of getting to Sam Darnold (20/32 for 246 yards, 2 TD; 8 rushes for 18 yards, 1 TD) and he held up well in the face of pressure, for the most part. A lot of penalties revived drives for Minnesota that wound up benefitting Darnold’s FF-scoring.

RB Report:
- Tony Pollard (9-15-0; 2 catches for 14 yards) just played two of the best run defenses in back-to-back weeks so the optics on him aren’t great, but he should be due for a nice game against JAX this weekend. Tennessee couldn’t get much going on the ground and hit some big plays in the air so they stuck with that.

- Aaron Jones (15-39-0; 1 catch for 4 yards) on the other hand, has had less than 3.2 yards per attempt in three of his last 4 games, and just the two TDs on the ground. His impact on the ground and air has lessened lately, I don’t like the age argument but it might be catching up to him… Jones is 29 and started to trend down during his age-26 season, he was touchdown-dependent but was still finding the endzone, he’s not anymore.

WR/TE Report:
- Just like Levis, Calvin Ridley (4-58-0/6) was affected by that BS penalty. What would have been a high-end WR1 week was just a random 10-point game that no one cares about. This is a great buy low at a discount, WR2 level.

- Nick Westbrook-Ikhine (2-117-1/6) scored a 98-yard TD, a flukey play but Levis also threw a dime to NWI over a corner and he just sprinted to the endzone uncontested from there. NWI keeps scoring and I want to fight it but you can’t... You have to respect the run he’s on. If I’m going to respect MVS then I’d be a hypocrite to not respect NWI.

D/ST Report:
- Andrew Van Ginkel (8 tackles, 2 sacks, 3 TFL) is finally getting his flowers after this week, this was the best game of his season, and took advantage of that extremely weak right side of the TEN line all game. Van Ginkel is now T5 for sacks on the season.

image source: (AP Photo/John Amis)